A Usenet persona calling itself Michael Daly wrote:

On 31-Mar-2005, "BCITORGB" wrote:

Now, are you 100% sure that provinces can't opt out of the national
healthcare system?

Now be VERY careful when you answer this. This IS a trick question. To
answer it, you'll need to explain what would happen to a province that
opts out (or tries to opt out).

Actually, there are a couple of ways out. However, ol' snotty could
never muster up that much understanding of any issue, let alone
Canadian politics, to know what they are.

Not really. The provinces are firmly attached to the federal teat and depend
on it for health care money, and, the Health Care Act mandates certain
things that obligate the provinces to provide health care plans, and then
the feds set the standards for the provincial plans.

A province opting out would violate the rights of its citizens, which are
established by the Act, and the federal government would not allow it and
can issue financial sanctions against the province for failing to comply
with the requirements of the Act.

Now, I suppose a province could secede and join the US, but I imagine Ottowa
would have something to say about that too.

--
Regards,
Scott Weiser

"I love the Internet, I no longer have to depend on
friends, family and co-workers, I can annoy people WORLDWIDE!" TM

© 2005 Scott Weiser